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Once again our local coke bottler has played bev god and decided we no longer need another product and package of another. As this year came to a close I waited with great anticipation for "santa pack" 8 ounce glass coke for 2002.Around dec 10 they arrived but sadly not wrapped in the festive plastic that is on some areas christmas bottles.To make matters worse we just found out my wife has blood sugar issues and would need to switch to a diet soda,as she is a cherry coke fan the logical choice would be diet cherry coke and with the repackaging of cherry to match regular and diet van. diet cherry was just a few weeks away.So i pick up my phone and call 1800getcoke to see what the story is and as always product and packaging issues go to local bottler so I call 315-995-2653 our local coke bottler who is as always as put out and in a rush to get me the hell off there line while you feel the right through the line. As expected they proceed to tell me that they do not plan to roll out plastic on coke bottles,diet cherry coke,8 ounce glass sprite and to top it off they tell me when asked about it the the beloved by some on this board SURGE will not be here any longer. only 1 day later when I went to get a surge at kmart before they run out. to late when it's time to take away they move like a bolt of lightning and it was traded for something else on the tap. now if it was the other way around like when may15th rolled around and van coke was due it was 5 days late.There is no excuse for this cause after calling the 1800 number again to confirm what if any syrup's were no longer made the only one was COKE II which suprised me.Point and fact is for someone trying to be loyal to a brand on a local level we sure got the shaft to bad the 1923 santa on the bottles can't smash the 6oz d bottle over the local execs head. that would be worth Pay per view fees to me

Drink soda in Glass Bottles,the way the little guy lays the smackdown on big 2\'s plasta-paradise.

For the last 20 years the Coke company has had that sort of attitude toward the consumer. They treat you like you're some sort of pest that they have to try to quietly get rid of lest you tell the world how rude they are and how little they care about you. I remember when they got rid of returnable bottles here I had called and told them that they should at least keep whatever they have gotten returned and still fill them and sell them by the case to loyal consumers who could drive to the plant. Gee how great this could be for ecology and they could televise people coming to the plant as a special interest story and all that good stuff; show how they care about the consumer, planet, and so forth. And the dingbat's response after hearing all of that was "well, you can recycle cans". Maybe the problem they have is that they feel they need to have a 800 number for people to call so they can say at their board meetings and golf encounters that they 'care', but they put idiots there who really don't care and who conveniently also don't know a whole lot about the big picture and who do not have access to anything beyond the basic information with which most anyone who buys Coke products is already familiar.

Have you ever considered shifting your loyalty away from Coke products to some brands which are more to your liking and which better fit your dietary needs?

Keep in mind that the King Of Pop\'s crown is not made from a bunch of melted aluminum cans!

I have finally found the wrapped Santa Bottles. This is strange through, they were released here after Christmas, produced by CCE Indianapolis plant (HO). Before Christmas a small amount of regular Santa 2002 bottles hit the shelves also produced by (HO). North of here Kokomo Coca-Cola (US) only bottled the regular 2002 Santa Bottles. I found the wrapped bottles at a local Costco in the 24 bottle case.

Although I can't match SS and his many years of Coke stories, I can tell you that for the past 2 years my requests to KO for information have gone unfulfilled.

I've written quite a few letters to them regarding SURGE and all I ever received back was a vague, non-answer that does nothing but skate around the real issue.

Perhaps my favorite response was when I asked Coke which local bottlers still produce SURGE they cheerfully answered, "We do not have the necessary resources to know which local bottlers produce a specific product". Yes, those billion dollar corporations are often lacking resources...

The Santa Coke bottles showed up around here at Waly-Mart only a few days before christmas. They were gone in two days. Now they have (or possibly 'had' by now) the boring Nascar bottles. I think it would be more fun to see more reproductions of the original bottle like they did at the 100 anniversary. (The flat sided bottle). That would be cool. These other commemorative bottles are worn out. Besides, these pot heads around here don't even buy them to drink. They keep all of them because they use them to "speculate", trying to resell them for more later on.

Let me echo what my good friend Eric stated above and also the general feelings of the poster. I have written Coke and many of its various bottlers no less than 100-200 times in the last few year. in fact I am proud to say that I have written every Coke bottler in the USA and even a few in Norway regarding SURGE and URGE. Yet at best they give me a vague answer and no explinations. I am an avid Coke fan and I defend them and many of their brands on a regualar basis and that is all I get?

Still the thing that really pisses me off the most is when, like Eric said, I contact Coke in Atlanta regarding SURGE avalibility and they tell me that they don't know. This is obvious bull****. Arnt they the people who ship the syrup?! I mean can't they just check to see which bottlers ordered syrup. Instead they offer me the number of my local bottler. When I explain to them that I help run the premier SURGE site on the net and that I provide them with vast numbers of sales they mierly shrug it off. After telling them my situation they still won't tell me which bottlers produce SURGE. I mean what do they expect? Do they want me to call each and every one of them!?!!?